1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to dampers used to prevent airflow bypass in an empty bay of a computer chassis.
2. Background of the Related Art
A computer chassis is a housing that contains various components of a computer system. Computer systems having replaceable or hot swappable components, the computer chassis may include a plurality of slots or bays for conveniently receiving and securing components. A notable example of such a computer system is a server blade system having a chassis that is equipped with a plurality of bays for receiving blade servers. The chassis may also include an air moving device, such as a group of fans, for moving air through each of the blade servers that are installed in the chassis. Because this airflow is responsible for cooling each blade server in the chassis, as well as other components of the chassis, the airflow must be distributed reliably among the blade servers.
When one of the blade servers is removed from a bay in the chassis, the airflow may channel through the empty bay and result in less airflow through the blade servers that are still installed in the chassis. This situation causes a loss of cooling efficiency and may allow components within the installed blade servers to over heat. As a result, some blade server chassis include an air bypass damper in each bay to ensure that airflow patterns remain distributed across all blade servers.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,771,499 discloses an airflow bypass damper including a rigid damper plate that is secured inside the chassis along one edge of the bay using a hinge. A torsion spring is used in combination with the hinge so that the damper plate is biased to extend across the bay and obstruct airflow. When, a blade server is inserted into the bay, the blade server engages the damper plate and causes the damper plate to rotate out of the path of the blade server.